


Gold, Guns, Girls

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Series: Son of a Spider [11]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Daredevil (TV), Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awesome Karen Page, BAMF Melinda May, F/M, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Found Family, Friendship/Love, Gen, Matt Murdock & Foggy Nelson Friendship, Parent Natasha Romanov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-11 03:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8951767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: The major events in Matt Murdock's life always seem to be punctuated by meeting strong women.  
Featuring several kickass ladies, one patient Foggy Nelson, way too many dumpster-diving vigilantes, and an explosive prom.





	1. Melinda May

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha, it's been a while, hasn't it? I had to take a break from this series after writing so much for it this summer. Writing 'Black Suit, Black Tie', 'Maybe Redemption', and 'I Can Be That Part of You' - two of which were quite long - back to back like that was a lot and I needed some time off. 
> 
> My current plan is for each chapter of this fic to feature a different first meeting between Matt and one of the awesome Marvel ladies we haven't seen yet in this 'verse. Updates might be sporadic - I do have a fairly busy real life and I'm currently writing for multiple fandoms at once (*cough cough* Voltron). But I'm definitely not done with this 'verse! 
> 
> A huge thank-you to everyone who has read, kudos-ed, or commented thus far. You guys are awesome.

Melinda looked at her desk and snorted at the corsage sitting in her in-box. Tasteful, elegant, with a red rose and a soft plume of white baby’s breath blossoms, it was the stuff high school girls’ dreams are made of.

            Theoretically. Melinda May had better things to dream about when she was in high school.

            “Hey, who’re the flowers from?” one of her coworkers (Jerry, IT, plays Galaga when he thinks people aren’t looking – catastrophically friendly. If he says hello to her one more time before nine am she’s going to hog tie him with his own necktie and leave him for the cleaning crew to find.)

            Melinda didn’t move her face, just slid her eyes over to where he was hovering over her shoulder, giving him a cold stare.

            Jerry-from-IT smiled nervously.

            Melinda slid her eyes back forward and rolled her desk chair closer to her desktop computer, pulling up her office email.

            “So, secret admirer?” Jerry-from-IT was persistent. What a pity Fury said he was shortlisted for Helicarrier crew. Why were all the competent ones so annoying (see: Clint Barton – although Barton made up for being obnoxious with a certain sarcastic charm).

            “No.” Melinda refused to grant him more syllables, instead opening a new email.

            “Um – ” Jerry seemed to be under the impression they were having a conversation.

            “No.”

            Jerry opened his mouth again, Melinda, not moving her head or her face, slid her eyes back over to him, “No.”

            Jerry gave up. “Nice flowers, though. Whoever they’re from,” he said as he walked away, whistling. _Whistling._ Nothing phased that man. There had to be something wrong with him.

            Melinda narrowed her eyes suspiciously at his retreating back but opted not to throw a pen at the back of his head. One, it would be childish. Two, then she’d be out a pen.

            She turned her attention back to her email.

…

**9 Years Previously**

            Matt Murdock was seventeen and could not catch a break. “I don’t want to go to prom.”

            “You’re going to prom,” Phil informed him, checking the magazine on a handgun in a very loud-yet-casual way that set Matt’s teeth on edge.

            “ _Phil_.”

            “Matthew. Do you want me to bring your mother in here?” Phil was kidding, Matt could hear it in his voice, but it was still grating.

            Matt sighed, “How vital to national security is this op?”

            “Extremely,” the woman with the slow, even heartbeat and near-silent breathing beside Phil said. She reminded Matt a little of Natasha. He could smell the leather of her jacket and guessed it was black. She seemed like the black-leather-jacket type.

            “It just seems a little…” he trailed off, not quite capable of putting into words the absurdity of this whole situation.

            “Insane?” Phil definitely sounded like he was laughing on the inside. Phil was secretly a jerk. Matt always forgot that until the worst moment.

            “Yes. Among other things.”

            “There’s that SAT vocabulary,” Clint drawled as he wandered into the room, boots thudding heavily on the floor, “Everybody ready?”

            “Yes,” Phil said, sounding patient, “ _Agent_ Barton, who is _not_ supposed to be on this op.”

            Clint snorted, “Yeah, like that was going to happen.”

            “I would not expect you to be he helicopter parent,” black-leather woman said, tone dry and amused.

            “Hey, I’m not helicoptering,” Clint protested, “I’m just…concerned. Baby’s first op and all.”

            Matt rolled his eyes, “I’m right here, Clint.”

            “Yeah, just make sure you stay in one piece.”

            “It’s _prom,_ Clint.”

            “Yeah, well, your prom has spies. Not normal. Not safe. Don’t die or get maimed or otherwise damaged.”

            Matt sighed the sigh of the long-suffering. “I suppose SHIELD’s providing the tux?”

            “And the limo,” Phil said generously.

            “And the date,” black-leather-jacket woman said, sounding less than enthused.

            “Wait, _what_?”

…

**Now**

            Melinda smirked as she dialed the number, listening to the phone ring once, twice, three times, no doubt as its owner debated whether or not it was safer to ignore it or answer it. He finally made a decision, answering the phone with a terse, “Hello, SHIELD. How may I help you?”

            “Matthew,” Melinda said, smirk intensifying at the sounds of Matt swearing and nearly dropping the phone.

            “Melinda,” he said, phone and composure recovered. “Why are you calling?” He tried to sound nonchalant but mostly just came off as breathless. No wonder he hated spy work. The boy was smart, but about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

            “I see you saw fit to decorate my inbox,” she said archly.

            “I thought you’d appreciate the gesture,” realizing the jig was up (if there ever was a jig in the first place), he reverted back to his usual sharp charm, “Fond memories and all.”

            Melinda found her mouth twitching; against her will, into a small smile, “Brat.”

            “It was a magical evening for all involved.”

            “The school caught fire. There were explosions.”

            “An inflammatory night?”

            “Close.”

…

**9 Years Previously**

            “You will call me ‘Mel’. I will have a student ID from a home school program so none of your classmates runs the risk of realizing I am not who I say I am. We know each other from church. We are not dating; we have been friends for several years and are going to prom to make my mother happy. Any questions?” The black-leather-jacket woman (Mel? Was he supposed to call her Mel now?) said brusquely, laying weapons out on the table and checking them over.

            “You aren’t actually a teenager, are you?” Matt said resignedly. “You’re old enough to be my bio-mom, aren’t you?”

            “No. And possibly. If your biological mother had birthed you at a very young age.”

            Matt felt his face twist into a grimace but still hummed philosophically, “I don’t know. I don’t remember her. For all I know, you could be her. That’d give this whole op a strange Oedipal twist.”

            ‘Mel’ huffed a soft sound that might have been a laugh to the ears of a chronic optimist, “I am not your biological mother.”

            Matt shrugged, trying and failing not to feel awkward about this whole thing. A small voice was still wailing in the back of his head that he didn’t even want to _go_ to prom in the first place. “Just thought I’d ask.”

            “I look young enough to pass for a teenager with the right makeup crew. And this operation is too delicate to trust with less-experienced agents.”

            “Oh. Okay. This is still incredibly awkward.”

            “Agreed,” she said, dry as the Sahara, and Matt liked her a little more at that.

…

**Now**

            “Who was that on the phone?” Foggy asked absently from his desk where he continued to stare blankly at the same inter-office memo he’d been scrutinizing for the past five minutes out of sheer boredom.

            “My former prom date,” Matt said mysteriously, picking up his own inter-office memo and sighed, “Is it worth it to make a complaint to HR?” he asked semi-rhetorically, flipping the paper over to show his friend it’s smooth, Braille-free surface.

            “I mean, if you want a record of discrimination so you can sue? Sure, complain to HR. If you realize that suing will cost you more than you could potentially gain and you don’t want to mess with the L&Z HR idiots? Nah. Just add it to your origami army.”

            Matt nodded philosophically and began folding. “The end will come and it will be on the wings of paper cranes,” he said as solemnly as possible.

            Foggy, who had taken an unwise sip of coffee in time to hear that, promptly choked on a laugh and his morning latte, “Not cool, not cool. Also, prom date? What? I feel like there’s some kind of story here…or some kind of terrifying catwoman person lurking somewhere with fond memories of corsages and ‘leaving room for Jesus’ on the heavily-supervised dance floor.”

            “My taste in dates isn’t that bad.”

            “If there is an incredibly attractive, morally questionable person within five hundred feet of Matthew Michael Murdock-Barton-Bishop-Nelson-Romanoff, he will seek them out. And probably go home with them. It’s a little horrifyingly unfair, really.”

            “What?”

            “They’re all so scary, but all so _hot_.”

            Matt shook his head, “And I don’t even want to know about the last name thing, do I?”

            “Oh, pssh, that’s easy. You were born Murdock, you’re one of Clint’s baby birds, Kate’s dominance will not be denied, my mom will adopt you and your entire tiny, messed-up family or die trying, and well, Natasha’s your mom. Murdock-Barton-Bishop-Nelson-Romanoff. Easy. Most of it’s in alphabetical order too.”

            Matt sighed, face contorting into his ‘I’m not even going to try to argue here, things have gotten too irrational too quickly’ expression. “ _Anyway_ , my prom was…not typical.”

            “How? Did no one spike the punch or something?”

            “No. There were spies. My date was an agent.”

            “Some people have all the luck.”

…

**9 Years Previously**

            Matt hated crowds, cheap punch, loud music, and the school gym all in equal measure. If they re-wrote the song ‘My Favorite Things’ to ‘Things Matt Hates Beyond all Human Measure’ this night and its accouterments, would feature heavily.

            “You’re tense,” Mel said beside him and Matt raised an eyebrow.

            “Blindfold yourself and turn your senses up to a thousand an you might have an idea of what I’m experiencing right now.”

            “Hmm.”

            “Nice comeback, solid conversational skills.”

            She responded to his sass by pinching the inside of his arm as she tucked it through the crook of her elbow. “Is this acceptable?” she asks about the limb arrangement, tone suggesting nothing was amiss as Matt winced.

            “Yes,” he sighed, suitably chastened but still slightly sullen.

            “Walk the perimeter with me?”

            “Why not?”

            It would be better than braving the dance floor.

…

**Now**

            “Why is Matty sending May flowers?” Clint asked, casually swinging down from an air duct to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with Natasha, who raised a skeptical eyebrow at the slightly dusty donut he offered her but still bumped his should companionably.

            “Remember prom?”

            “Those morons with the school computers?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Heh, that was funny.”

            Natasha hummed absently, “Matthew has a good head for dates. He likes to mark anniversaries.”

            “See, I thought he’d just inherited my excellent sense of humor.”

            Natasha offered him a crooked half-smiled, “A little of both,” she took a bite from his donut and frowned at him, “That’s disgusting.”

            “I know. Wanna see if there’s any unclaimed food in the break room fridge?”

            “Somehow that does not appeal.”

            She followed him anyway.

…

**9 Years Previously**

            “So why are we here?” Matt muttered under his breath as they walked the circumference of the school gym, arm in arm.

            “A group we’ve been tracking is smuggling vital information in unlabeled files on stored in shipments of computers. But they miscalculated and one of their shipments were sent to replace this school’s computers.”

            “And you think they’ll use the distraction of prom to retrieve them? Why not just break in after hours?”

            “I never said they were bright. Then again, with everyone in the school building, all the security systems will be disengaged but security itself will be fairly light with all the focus being on keeping the punch un-spiked.”

            Matt hummed vaguely. He’d picked up the habit from Natasha.

            Mel tensed beside him, “They might be moving.”

            “Or they could be sneaking off to drink, smoke or –” Matt paused, realizing that what he had almost said was definitely not something one said in front of one’s parents’ co-workers, “…canoodle…” he finished lamely.

            Mel snorted, “I don’t think that’s the case here.”

…

**Now**

“I would like the record to show that your prom was cooler than mine.”

            “It really wasn’t.”

            “Says you.”

            “Says me.”

            Foggy sighed dramatically, “Nothing exploded at my prom. The highlight of the night was when Francine Picket dunked her boyfriend’s head in the punchbowl screaming ‘You cheating bastard!’ while her best friend hit…them? Her? Him? Not sure…with her tiny sparkly purse. You stopped international crime at your prom.”

            “Really badly done international crime.”

            “Still. Way more exciting than Francine Picket.”

…

**9 Years Previously**

            _‘We aren’t supposed to run in the halls’_ Matt thought, smothering the beginnings of a poorly-timed snicker as he fled the muffled thud of silenced gunfire. That thought was swiftly followed up with _‘I hate being the distraction_ ’ as he launched himself off the side of a wall of lockers and over the line of fire, taking advantage of the stutter and pause in the shooting as his enemies recovered from the unexpected move to run forward and slam the closest shooter to the ground, ducking and rolling as he did, bringing a leg forward to kick the knees out from underneath the second. The second went down, but not without squeezing off one more round that skimmed over Matt’s back, ruining a perfectly good rental tux and making Matt very grateful for the bulletproof vest his mother had insisted on him wearing underneath.

            He levered himself forward, catching the shooter’s arm and twisting until he heard a crack-pop and a muffled scream-gasp. Matt followed it up with a swift strike to the man’s neck, hitting the nerve bundle hard and fast and rendering him safely unconscious. Behind him the shuffle-drag of the other one’s clothes against linoleum told Matt to twist out of the way, rolling onto his back and getting his feet up to kick the groggy first gunman in the jaw, sending him down and out with a thud.

            Through the adrenaline haze Matt caught the faintest hint of smoke and stiffened, rolling to his feet just in time to hear Mel come tear around the corner, “Small fire, follow me,” she shot off tersely and Matt followed.

…

**Now**

            Melinda May considered the corsage. It hadn’t been a bad night, all told. Yes, the school had ended up mildly on fire and there had been something of a fight but ultimately it was a minor mission with no casualties capped off with a successful retrieval of the wayward intel.

            And the Murdock/Barton/Romanoff/whatever kid wasn’t half bad at watching her back.

            She huffed a small laugh and put the corsage in the top drawer of her desk. She’d take it home with her when she left for the night.

…

**9 Years Previously**

            “No more field work for you, Polygraph,” Natasha sighed, wrapping an EMT blanket around Matt’s shoulders despite the elaborate faces he pulled in protest.

            “I didn’t start the fire.”

            “Maybe I’m not comfortable with you getting shot at quite that regularly.”

            “A fire, a gun fight and a small explosion on your first mission, high-five kiddo!”

            “Clint.” Natasha’s voice teetered on the edge between deadly threat and restrained laughter.

            “Go team!” Clint said cheerfully, “Way better than my prom.”

            Natasha tucked the blanket more securely around Matt’s shoulders and said, “I’m going to talk to Phil; don’t wander,” before striding off.

            Matt caught a whiff of expensive clothes slightly burnt and knees slightly skinned as Mel slid onto the SHIELD vehicle’s bumper beside him. “Good work,” she said evenly.

            “Thanks,” Matt replied, “let’s not do that again.”

            She laughed.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 – Karen**

**A Few Months Previously**

"I almost got fired today."

"And how did you avoid that?"

"I preemptively quit."

"Matt-" Natasha sighed, he could hear the huff and drag of her breath through her lungs, the way it caught on the corners of her almost-smile.

"Foggy quit too," Matt said a tad defensively.

Foggy snorted, an auditory expulsion with strong hints of ‘throw me to the wolves, why don’t you?’ "Yeah, I did. Because apparently idiocy is contagious. Although, quitting might be a good idea in the long run. I'm not sure how I feel about working for a company that expects you at the office during the alien apocalypse."

"Try working for SHIELD." Natasha said dryly, sipping her coffee.

"We're not working for SHIELD," Matt countered flatly, sipping his own coffee, unconsciously mirroring his mother.

"I dunno, Matt, do they have free bagels?"

"Foggy. No."

Natasha chuckled.

**Now**

            Matt was awake, rolling to his feet and grabbing his phone before it could get even one full vibrate out – he hated his ringtone, he hated all ringtones – especially that damn ‘mosquito ring’ that was so popular with kids in the late 2000s. (It’s like an ice pick to his brain, that shrill, piercing thing. He can see why kids liked it, anyone over 30 doesn’t have the ears for it, but it might actually kill Matt one of these days, if he doesn’t snap and break his ‘no killing’ rule just to make the heinous noise end.)

            “What’s going on?” He asked, sure that the world must be ending or Nick Fury was craving a bagel or some other SHIELD chicanery.

            “Oh my god, Matt, thank god, okay, um, oh god, I need…help? Like, some serious help here,” Kate babbled into the speaker and Matt was already heading for the Daredevil trunk as she spoke.

            “What’s going on, Kate? Are you in trouble? Where are you?” Matt stretched his senses out, trying to pinpoint his adopted sister in the mess that was New York City at night. It was hard – he tried harder.

            “ _I’m_ not in trouble but there’s this hit man I knocked out and a guy that might be dead and the unconscious woman the hit man tried to frame for murder and I need help, Matt, please.”

            “Why didn’t you call Mom or Clint?”

            “They’re not lawyers. If I get picked up by the cops I’m gonna need legal aid stat.”

            “You had better not get picked up by the cops, Kate,” Matt growled, “I am not letting Foggy and I’s first case be because my sister’s a vigilante.”

            Kate laughed nervously, “Eheheh, these things happen, right?”

            “No, they don’t.”

            “Ooh, Daredevil voice, so scary,” Kate said and ordinarily it would sound like teasing, her voice would slide up and down the register playfully and Matt would smile. But this time it sounded like Kate was two seconds from hyperventilating – the high notes going just a little too high, and Matt could hear her breath rasp against the speaker.

            “I’m suited up and on my way.”

            “Do you sleep in your crime-fighting pajamas or something?”

            “No, I’m just efficient,” Matt told her, a little bit of gravel already creeping into his voice as the familiar persona fell around his shoulders. He wondered if this was how his mother felt when she went out to fight. Like he’d cut a piece of himself free and set it loose while the rest of him took a backseat to the dark, feral creature inside. He refocused on Kate; now was not the time, “Keep talking to me, Katie; let me know you’re still there.”

            He switched the phone feed over to his in-helmet headset and Kate’s voice flooded his brain.

            “Um, okay, what do you want to hear?”

            “Describe the scene to me.”

            Kate cleared her throat, he could hear the sound hum and wobble uncertainly at the back of her throat, “Okay, uh, there’s a shit-ton of blood. Like, I didn’t know there was this much blood in people? I tried to help the guy but he’s too…too dead. There’s blood all over me, it’s sticky.”

            Matt’s brain flashed, unbidden to another night years and year ago, a gunshot heard across the city. _“Let me through, that’s my dad!_ ” Yeah, blood is sticky.

            “I know, Katie, keep talking. Tell me about the woman instead. Is she breathing?”

            “She’s breathing, I got her sitting up and away from the dead guy. She’s blonde. Really pretty.”

            ‘Blonde’ doesn’t mean a whole lot to Matt any more. It’s been so long since he saw colors as vague as hair – he mostly only remembered basic rainbow colors these days. Red, like his suit, like his mother’s hair, like blood. Purple, like Clint, like Kate. Blue, like Foggy, cool and soothing. He nodded anyway, “Good, good. Keep going. I’m going to find you guys.”

…

            Kate startled when he appeared on the fire escape, he could hear her snap to attention, the creak of her armor as she knocked an arrow, aimed, spotted his silhouette, and relaxed all between one breath and the next echoing in his ears like the rhythm of a familiar song. “Hey, dude,” she said, trying for casual and missing the mark by a wide margin, “What’s up?” She opened the window for him and he slid inside, padding silent as a cat like Natasha taught him.

            Once inside the scent of blood was overwhelming and Matt could feel his abdominal muscles tighten, fighting conflicting reflexes – the coppery tang of a fight in the air versus the long-buried memory of a thin t-shirt under a child’s hands and the overpowering reek of the dirty alleyway where Jack Murdock didn’t deserve to die.

            Fuck, but Matt hated crime scenes.

            He paced the perimeter anyway, listening for anything out of place and narrowly avoiding tripping over an end table.

            “What happened here?” he finally asked when he was sure that the room was empty of all but them and that all the neighbors were peacefully occupied elsewhere.

            “I was on patrol and this shifty-ass dude comes skulking down the fire escape,” Kate fell back on ingrained instinct, reporting her night’s activities to Matt just like she did when she was a scruffy kid he found in a dumpster, “I don’t have your super-sniffer but I could smell the blood on his clothes when he got close enough. So I dropped his ass and started asking questions. He was disinclined to answer with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so I just knocked him out and traced his steps. And found these guys.” He could hear her gesture even if he can’t see it.  

            Matt breathed deep through his nose and tried to sift through the thousands of conflicting scents clotting this room, hoping to find even one that might lead them in a direction that made even the littlest bit of sense.

            Nothing.

            Well, actually, it was a whole lot of _everything_ that ended Matt’s short attempt at being a bloodhound. There was just too much going on in the room to trace everything or even to understand half of it.

            Resigned, he sighed and turned back to Kate, “Did you search our hit man?”

            “Yeah, nothing. He used one of the steak knives from the kitchen as the murder weapon and whatever drugs he used on these guys he’s already gotten rid of. His pockets are empty. No concealed weapons I could find. I’m not gonna strip him so that’s about all I’ve got on this dude.”

            Matt thought. They were going to have to call in SHIELD. He knew it. He’d had a suspicion they’d be resorting to asking Fury’s toy soldiers for help before the night was over but he hadn’t wanted it to actually be _true._

            “Maybe we could wake the woman up?” Kate suggested, “We could take her back to your place and get her up and running and ask her what’s going on?”

            Matt hummed thoughtfully, “But what if this is her apartment? There’s too much blood here for us to clean up on our own; the police will come eventually. Probably sooner rather than later – if they – whoever ‘they’ are – are trying to set the woman up to take the fall for the man’s murder then they’ll have a second hired gun set somewhere else, ready to call an anonymous tip in to the police in the morning.”

            “So the cops will know they’re looking for her,” Kate concluded.

            “Yeah,” Matt acknowledged grimly, “Not an ideal situation.” He wanted badly to pace but couldn’t risk it in a stranger’s apartment. If he made a misstep he could fall and trip and cut himself and leave even more confusing DNA evidence for the inevitable forensic investigation. Plus it was just embarrassing to trip in Daredevil gear.

“Not to mention what the hell are we supposed to do with an unconscious hit man,” Kate sighed.

Matt snapped his fingers, “Wait, I have an idea for that.”

…

            And that is how Matt and Kate found themselves shamble-walking down the street with an unconscious murderer supported between them like a drunk being walked home from a party.

_“You know SHIELD drop-off points?_ ”

            _“Yeah.”_

_“So like an after-hours library book drop but for apprehended criminals?”_

_“Sort of, except this one has gag-ordered staff on hand to accept the miscreants.”_

            They dumped the guy and refused to give any further details – trusting that once the SHIELD techs tested the blood literally on his hands they’d put two and two together and contact local law enforcement to ask about recent homicides. Hopefully by then Matt and Kate will have figured out who these people are and why they have hired killers after them. That done, Matt made like ET and phoned home.

            “Mom?”

            “Polygraph. Are you ready to tell me why you asked me to come babysit a crime scene after midnight?”

            “We’ll talk when Kate and I get back.”

            “Hmm,” Matt could feel his mother assessing him like an itch under his skin. She didn’t press, though, just hung up decisively.

            “I nominate you for explaining this to Mama Spider,” Kate said.

            Matt snorted, “If we’re lucky she’ll have figured it all out for us by the time we get there.”

…

            Natasha had not figured it all out by the time they got there. Matt hadn’t really anticipated she would but there had been a small thread of hope left in him that she’d piece it together somehow in the time it took for them to return. Some lingering childish wish for an adult to swoop in and answer all the hard questions, despite the fact that Natasha had never given him a free answer in his life and probably never would.

            She stood sentry beside the woman, her back to the wall, away from all the windows and doors. He could hear her breathing, zero in on her individual heartbeat the way he only could with his family. The other heartbeat in the room, the drugged, stumbling thump-thud of the unconscious woman’s was beside her and Matt felt a twist of warmth curl in his stomach at the fact that his formidable mother had pulled the other woman out of the line of potential fire.

            “What is this about?” Natasha asked as soon as they entered the room. She hadn’t asked any questions when they first called her in, had just absorbed the minimal information they’d given her and agreed to stand watch, but now all bets were off. Natasha wanted to know what they’d gotten her into and she wanted to know yesterday.

            “Short answer: we don’t know,” Matt admitted.

            “Long answer: we _really_ don’t know,” Kate quipped after him but sobered quickly under what Matt assumed was Natasha’s glare, “I caught a hit man after he did his thing here. When I got up here it was all set up for the blonde to take the rap for the guy’s murder. If I hadn’t gotten here she’d be in cuffs tomorrow.”

            “But we don’t know why any of it happened,” Matt elaborated, “As far as I can sense, there’s nothing of any particular value here. This isn’t an affluent neighborhood. She could be the mistress of a powerful man, but I don’t smell enough gold in here for her to have a lot of fancy jewelry.”

            “You can smell gold?” Kate asked incredulously.

            “After a great deal of training,” Natasha answered for him as Matt nodded.

            “Weird but cool,” Kate concluded.

            “So,” Matt dragged them back on track, “We have to find out what’s going on here and our best bet is the woman waking up an telling us, which she can’t if she’s indicted for murder.”

            “And whoever hired that man will have someone else to call it in anonymously,” Natasha reached the same conclusion Matt had earlier.

            “Exactly,” Matt agreed.

            Natasha hummed thoughtfully, “Is there anything unusual happening on the street level?” she asked.

            “I broke up a mass kidnapping – the usual human trafficking shit – earlier tonight,” Matt offered, “But beyond organized crime seeming a little more organized? Not much.”

            “Hm.” Natasha said non-committally, “Interesting.”

            “If we take her back to your apartment we can claim she’s in SHIELD or Avengers’ jurisdiction if local law comes for her,” Matt explained, “And hopefully she’ll wake up and remember something.”

            “And leave this for people to find?” Kate asked, sounding a little offended, “But leaving this poor guy in a puddle of his own blood…that’s fucking cold.”

            “There is nothing else for it,” Natasha declared in her decisive, passionless voice that said this was Work and feelings did not come first here.

            Kate made a frustrated sound but didn’t argue. Matt picked up the woman and together they made for the rooftops and home.

…

            Matt really should have seen the punch to the face coming. In his defense, he heard the woman begin to stir, had heard the sharp, jackrabbit uptick of her heartbeat at opening her eyes to a strange new place. He leaned over her with the purest of intentions.

            But he was also wearing a mask with horns. The devil is rarely an inspiring image in daylight.

            The reinforced nose-piece saved his face from more than minor bruising but she still packed a mean punch and didn’t stop there, thrashing and screaming and beating at him with all her (limited, still drunk-slow from the drugs) might as he tried to back away and say some soothing words.

            “Where the fuck am I? What the fuck have you done to me? What the hell is going on?” she shouted the questions rapid-fire, following each up with further blows to Matt’s ego and head and shoulders, “Who the hell are you? What did you do to Daniel?”

            They were finally getting somewhere – although Matt personally was just getting more exasperated and bruised. “Would you stop that?” he yelped, trying to slap her hands away with admittedly limited success.

            “Not until you tell me where I am and what the fuck is going on!” she shouted and grabbed…something…oh god, it was a book; that was a book whistling through the air. Matt dodged at the last second and it glanced off his helmet. He tried to grab it out of her hands but she hung on like a Rottweiler and they played a weird tug-of-war that ended in Matt actually pulling her bodily off the couch by the book she refused to relinquish. Unfortunately, he hadn’t expected the addition of her weight and they both toppled over backwards, Matt’s spine slamming painfully into the ground and her bony body landing on top of him like a clichéd melodrama meet-cute.

            She yelp-shouted something indignant and rolled off of him, making sure to elbow him in the solar plexus as she went.

            The air rushed out of Matt’s lungs all at once and left him coughing and winded on the floor. She skittered away, scrabbling through the kitchen for a weapon and presumably not finding one (Natasha removed all the knives before leaving to search the crime scene more thoroughly). She finally stopped looking and grabbed something, pointing it in his general direction – he could hear the whistle of it cutting through the air (it’s probably a meat fork, he’s pretty sure, this is definitely a first for him).

            “Who. Are. You.” She demanded, voice like steel, “And what did you do to me and Daniel?”

            Of course this was when Kate stepped out of the bathroom in a cloud of soft floral-scented steam, drying her hair with one of Natasha’s good towels (like a cloud, they’re so soft and perfect). And because she is a _terrible_ sister, Kate immediately began to cackle like a maniac. “Matt? Oh my god, did you let a 90-pound woman beat you up? That’s taking chivalry waaaaay too far, bro. Oh my god, you look so sad and pathetic on the floor.”

            “Are you going to help me up? And quit saying my name.”

            Kate just kept laughing, “No, no, you have to help yourself here, damsel.”

            Matt groaned, “Ingrate.”

            Kate just kept laughing helplessly, “No, you stay there, old man. Let me get my phone, the public needs to see this. And by public I mean your best friend. And the Avengers. And everyone on my Snapchat.”

            “Don’t you dare,” Matt flipped to his feet and ran after his sister, pinpointing her easily in the familiar space.

            They suddenly remembered their impromptu guest when the woman in question shouted, “Who the fuck are you people? And what…” her breath was coming fast and hard and Matt began to worry about hyperventilation, “…what the ever-loving _fuck_ is going on? Where is Daniel?”

            Matt turned his attention away from Kate and back towards the frightened woman in his kitchen. “Daniel? Is that the name of the man we found you with?” he asked, keeping his voice gentle, rounding out the sounds into something softer, less aggressive.

            She must have nodded because he could hear the whisper of her hair sliding up and down her shoulders. “Where is he?” she asked, voice small.

            “We found you both in your apartment,” Matt explained as kindly as he could, “You were unconscious. We apprehended your attacker and brought you here. This is my parents’ place.”

            “Where’s Daniel? Is he here too?”

            Matt chewed his lip, there was no easy way to explain this, “I’m very sorry, your friend was dead at the scene. Your attacker was trying to frame you for his murder. He used one of your knives and left you…” Matt made a vague gesture toward her and the blood he could still smell smeared across her front.

            The air tasted of salt as her eyes filled with tears. The meat fork shook, but stayed raised. Matt had to admire her spirit.   This woman woke up in a strange place, covered in blood, with a masked guy leaning over her, and instead of cowering and crying she fought. She was fighting since her eyes opened and she wasn’t willing to stop trying to fight even as the enormity of what had happened began to sink in.

            “Oh god, what have I done?” she murmured. Matt could hear the microscopic creak of her skin against the grip of the meat fork as her hands spasmed.

            “I don’t know if you know who I am,” Matt tried to explain, “But people call me Daredevil, I work with the Avengers sometimes…”

            “Oh for the love of god, Matthew, take the damn mask off,” Kate snapped, “Secret identities are bullshit anyway. How the hell is she going to know who you are anyway? There are thousands of people in New York!”

            Matt grimaced, but Kate was right. He had hoped to keep the mask on, to hide his eyes, to keep some microscopic amount of distance between his personal and public lives. But in hindsight it really wasn’t fair to the woman. The mask came off. “My name is Matt, as you probably guessed.”

            “No, I thought your name was Jeremiah,” the woman said with a thin thread of humor that teetered on the edge of hysteria but never quite fell that far.

            “I like her,” Kate declared decisively, “She can stay.”

            “Who are you, if I might ask?” Matt inquired politely over Kate’s impertinence.

            “Karen,” the woman in question admitted quietly, “Karen Page. I work for Union Allied. I’m a secretary.”

            “Okay, Karen,” Matt acknowledged, “What happened tonight? Why was that man trying to frame you?”

            Karen swallowed convulsively – Matt could hear her throat click. “I saw something I shouldn’t and then I did something…I got Daniel killed, oh god, he has a family.”

            Matt could hear the tiny reverberations of the meat fork shaking, the wobbly sound of metal in motion as her hands trembled. “Karen, please focus. Tell us what happened.”

            Of course that was when Natasha came through the door, prowling like a cat. “Our friend seems to have kicked quite the hornet’s nest,” she said, voice dry and chilled like expensive white wine and Siberian winters.

            “How did you get that?” Karen demanded, apparently responding to something in Natasha’s hand too small for Matt’s senses to catch; then sucked in a breath, “You’re Black Widow.”

            Matt could imagine Natasha raising an eyebrow – he remembered the feeling of her face moving beneath his hands as a child, the power of that single raised brow. “You’re fairly adept at hiding things but you’re not on my level,” she said, straightforward and sharply honest.

            “What is it?” Matt asked, moving back to sit on the arm of the couch and turning his face in his mother’s general direction.

            “A flashdrive with Union Allied’s secret books on it,” Karen said, voice solidifying into something stronger and Matt could sense a flicker of the steel inside her, “I’m a secretary there and someone sent them to me accidentally – I opened them,” she cleared her throat and the next time she spoke it was with that core of steel, “And the numbers didn’t add up so I, like an _idiot_ , took it to my boss. He told me to give him the files, that he’d fix it. But…I didn’t trust him. I’m a secretary, not stupid. I spend all day looking at spreadsheets; you think I don’t know how to read them? I know. I know when something’s more than a clerical error. I’m pretty sure Union Allied is a front, a front for something else. Something a lot more illegal.”  

            “You’re not wrong,” Natasha agreed.

            “And I didn’t know what to do, I needed help. So I asked Daniel – he works…worked, there too, in legal. I asked him to look into it with me, to figure out what was going on. But now…”

            “Now Daniel is dead,” Natasha said and it was not ungentle but there was no compromise in her voice. Natasha was never one to shirk from confronting the darkness, whether it was within or without.

            “They killed him,” Karen said, not a shred of uncertainty in her words, “I know they did, and they tried to frame me and those _motherfuckers_ …” she sounded halfway between screaming and crying, wounded and furious, “Who else have they killed for getting too close? Daniel was a nice guy, just some nice, normal guy I thought could help me and now he’s _dead_. Who else? Who else got too close and had to go?’

            “This flashdrive is dangerous,” Natasha said, blunt as ever, “But it is yours.” A flashdrive then, small and mostly scentless, no wonder Matt didn’t pick up on it.

            “You want me to decide what to do with it?”

            “We are our choices,” Natasha told her cryptically.

            Matt decided to intervene, “The way I see it you have a few options. You could take it to the authorities. If you give it to a good cop there’s a chance they’ll get some traction, open up an investigation – but they could also get shut down when Union Allied starts throwing money and influence around. You could also hand it over to someone crooked on accident. You can turn it over to SHIELD and it will disappear into an investigation that will never see the light of day. Everything would be taken care of, but behind the scenes. No media. No one would know what happened. Or…if we can’t tell anybody we tell _everybody_.”

            “The newspapers, Polygraph?” Natasha sounded intrigued.

            Matt shrugged, “It would force SHIELD to look into it anyway, it would spread the word and it would be impossible to ignore.”

            “I like it,” Karen said and while her voice may have wobbled slightly she had never sounded so sure.

            “Sweet,” Kate said under her breath, then startled when everyone stared at her, “What? I finally get to be part of a scandal without it involving my bio-dad and topless models.”

            That managed to shake a real laugh out of Karen Page.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 – Claire**

            Claire was tired, her feet were sore and her higher-level brain functions had been reduced to a staticky, weary, buzz with a strong undercurrent of _coffeecoffeecoffee-I-need-coffee_. But when a woman screamed somewhere down the street her head was already jerking up and her feet – reduced to autopilot after a twelve-hour night shift from hell – were already carrying her towards the source of the sound.

            Around a corner, into an alley and she found herself face to face with a slender blonde woman beating off two thugs with flailing limbs and a well-aimed purse. The blonde looked like someone’s secretary or maybe a restaurant manager – dressed decently but not expensively in heels and pencil skirt, a blue blouse having come half untucked in the struggle, her hair spilling out of its careful updo. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth in a snarl and she seemed to be drawing breath for another scream when Claire, searching the rubbish-strewn alley, snatched a length of pipe – prayed for forgiveness (lapsed Catholic she might be, but this was pretty much the exact opposite of ‘do no harm’ and these guys looked fully capable of ripping her in half if she missed, she needed all the divine favor she could get) – and clobbered Thug 1 with the it.

            Claire learned what ‘hit the ground like a ton of bricks’ looked like. It looked remarkably like a very big man suddenly losing consciousness and the ability to support his own weight all at once.

            The blonde woman, taking advantage of her enemy’s sudden departure from the field of combat, flung her purse in Thug 2’s face, hauled off and punched the goon in the throat. He too hit the ground like the proverbial ton of bricks.

            “Ah! Haha! Yes!” the blonde must have been going into some sort of shock because her hands were fluttering, to her chest, her throat, around her face and her face was twitching between a bright smile and a look of horror, a quavering laugh escaping her throat, “I did it. I stopped that guy. I did it! Matt, I did it!” she raised her voice for that last bit and Claire was seriously worried about her mental and emotional stability.

            And then it got a whole new level of weird. “Miss, are you alright - ?” Claire was beginning to ask when a new voice sounded from a fire escape just behind her and above her head.

            “I came as quickly as I could. But it looks like you have it taken care of.” And there sat Daredevil. On a fire escape. Just. Casually there. Claire thought she’d probably be more shocked and alarmed if she wasn’t a nurse. She’d seen weirder things on the graveyard shift at the ER than some wacko in a fetish gear congratulating a girl on sucker-punching a mugger in the throat. This was New York. Come on.

            The woman let out a shaky laugh, and said, voice full of wonder, “I did it. I made him stop,” then she paused and seemed to think, “Oh, god, I didn’t kill him, did I?”

            “No,” Daredevil said before Claire could finish checking Thug 2’s vitals. He was right, but it unnerved Claire that he somehow knew that. Without trying.

            _Maybe Mama was right and the devil does walk the streets of New York City at night_.

            It didn’t seem likely. But. Stranger things had happened. And even if he was a devil of a biblical sort, Claire had seen his handiwork close hand, had seen scumbags escorted into the hospital, handcuffed to their beds, taken down by the devil, had listened to the teary tales of shaken girls, boys, old ladies, and middle-aged men, and everyone in between, all saying “He was just _there_ and suddenly – insert scumbag name here – wasn’t bothering me anymore. It was like magic. I didn’t think anyone heard me yell for help, but he did.”

            “Oh, good, okay,” the blonde seemed to be getting herself back under control, her breathing wasn’t as jagged or concerning as before and her hands had slowed, “I mean, he’s obviously not a _good_ guy but I really don’t want to have to kill anyone.” Her eyes were huge, too-bright in the reflected lamplight.

            “Don’t worry. There wasn’t enough power in your punch to kill a man his size,” the Devil said wryly.

            The woman huffed, “I took him down.”

            “Yes, but you’re a long way from a life of vigilante crime-fighting.”

            “We can’t all be leather-clad ninjas.”

            “No, that’s my job,” the Devil turned his mask towards Claire – she called it a mask because that was what it was. While it was appropriately proportioned for a face, there was nothing about the cold, solid features that expressed the warmth or mobility of a true human face. This was a barrier between someone and the rest of the world. “Thank you for your help,” the Devil said, lamplight catching on the edges of his shape in the darkness, illuminating the thin sliver of a smile he offered her.

            “No problem,” Claire said, suddenly uncomfortable with all his attention focused on her. Some part of her brain telling her to brace for a fight while another part of her mind ordered her to reach out to this man – for he was a man, some sort of human being, the thin ghost of a smile told her that much. Because she’s seen the handful of Avengers interviews out there, she’s read the newspaper articles and speculation and profiles. No one puts on Kevlar and fights evil outside the law if they’ve had a stable, normal life. If they didn’t have a few broken places.

            The Devil tipped his head to the side, smile slipping into something more considering. “You work at a hospital. You’re tired. You’ve had a long night.”

            “Well that’s creepy,” Claire said flatly, mostly because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

            “I told you,” the blonde woman agreed, “it’s creepy.”

            The Devil actually _pouted_ a bit at her “I can’t help it.”

            The blonde rolled her eyes, “What have I told you about inside and outside thoughts? Some thoughts? Better kept _inside_ your head.” She paused momentarily and suddenly deflated, “Shit. My purse is under Thug 2.”

            It was nice to know someone else had numbered them.

            “I’ll help you lift him,” Claire offered, coming over to the meathead’s other side and helping the blonde lever him up.

            “After Karen retrieves her purse we should get some coffee,” Daredevil announced from the fire escape.

            “What?” Claire found herself huffing incredulously.

            The Devil nodded definitively, “Yes. My treat. A thank you for helping my friend.”

            Now it was Claire’s turn to roll her eyes, “I just did the right thing. It wasn’t that hard.”

            “Hmm, you’d be surprised.”

            Go figure, the guy who dressed up as the lord of hell was a cynic. Why was Claire surprised?

            “Got it!” the blonde – Karen, apparently, announced, holding up her purse triumphantly “And I’ll treat for coffee, as a thank you, um - ?”

            “Claire.”

            “Claire!” Karen grinned at her and while it was still a little watery, her eyes were bright.

            “Claire,” Daredevil echoed from his fire escape.

…

            And that was how Claire ended up on the most surreal coffee run of her life. Her companions didn’t give away much personal information beyond Karen’s name (and the fact that Daredevil also went by ‘Matt’ – a detail Claire had picked up in the aftermath of the original fight). But they were both good conversationalists – clever, witty. Daredevil, Matt, whatever, was obviously genuinely in love with New York City, Hell’s Kitchen in particular.

            (“He’s very invested in his motif” Karen had stage-whispered to Claire while Matt made indignant noises.)

            “Why were those assholes hassling you?” Claire asked as Matt paid for the coffees, practically forcing the money on the coffee stand owner, who kept trying to waive the fee for the neighborhood superhero.

            “Uh, well,” Karen hunched deeper into her coat, “I may have exposed some criminals and their criminal activity recently and some people weren’t too happy about that.”

            “It’s being dealt with,” Daredevil said with finality as he passed out their drinks and Claire didn’t have the heart or the energy to argue or ask further questions.

…

            She figured she’d never see them again after they parted ways.

            She saw them two days later.

…

            “Matthew, you have to help me out here!” a semi-familiar voice pleaded by the dumpster when Claire went to take out her trash.

            “What the hell?” Claire dropped the full bag of refuse next to her feet and folded her arms, “What the hell is going on?”

            “ _Matthew_ ,” Karen growled, “Needs medical attention and he’s not going to get it if he stays in the dumpster.”

            Incoherent groaning followed her statement and Claire could only conclude that this poor woman was hanging on by a thread and her pet vigilante’s delicate condition was testing her resilience severely.

            Claire made up her mind. “Okay, move over, let me see what I can do.”

            And that was how she took a vigilante home to patch up like a child’s torn teddy bear.

…

            “You never mentioned evil Russians!”

            “It didn’t come up?”

            “Karen, Claire, listen carefully, I need you two to work with me here…”

…

            Claire is pretty sure being a superhero isn’t all its cracked up to be.

…

            Claire knows his tricks by now; she’d watched Karen do this exact same thing. So she stands in an out of the way corner of Hell’s Kitchen and calls for Matt and hopes he’ll find her.

            “What’s this?”

            “A burner phone. It has my number in it. For when you need me to patch up your risk-taking ass.”

            “Claire – ”

            “I’m not ‘hero’ material, Matt. But I can fix people; I’m good at it. I’m good at putting the pieces back together. So just…let me help you here.”

            “Claire, you _are_ a – ”

            “Just take the phone and call me if you need me to do my job.”

            “Ok.”

            “And don’t put any more holes in yourself while you’re at it.”

            “Thank you, Claire.”

            “It’s what I do. We can’t all wear leather and spandex.”

            “Still a hero,” Matt/Daredevil/whatever mutters at her back as she walks away and Claire laughs because he’s a dork and cheesy as hell but he matters to her now, despite herself.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title from the song 'Gold, Guns, Girls' by Metric.


End file.
